How to counter Hog Poison Combo Deck

Have you ever faced an opponent equipping Poison card along with Hog Rider, a super annoying combo which can gradually lower down your Arena Tower’s HP? In this guide I’ll show some methods to counter this OP combo!

Overview: This deck mainly focuses on taking down tower gradually, which means it requires multiple pushing attempts. Both Hog and Poison can deal moderate damage to crown towers. The deck still remains popular in Arena 5, and many players find it struggling to deal with. Without the right strategy and the right cards to counter it, you may find yourself losing an Arena Tower very quickly.

1. Counter cards to Hog + Poison combo

Having beefy/high damage troops in your deck! Why? Because you need to kill Hog as fast as possible, or else he will hit your tower times to times, along with poison spell, leaving your tower in low HP. In addition, Poison can easily kill your squishy troops if they level it up, so you should get some beefy troops to take care or Hog Rider.

Mini Pekka – Hitting like a truck! He can do 2 or 3 hit to take down a Hog Rider alone. Also, Poison cannot kill Pekka or mini Pekka instantly.

Barbarians – 4 moderate HP troops with moderate damage, combining together and they can kill Hog very fast. They can survive a Poison spell alone as well.

Valkyrie – She is best against Hog + swarm of troops, also can be utilized for next counter attack.
Knight – A cheap, easy-to-upgrade, and hard-hitting troop being able to take down Hog in couple of seconds.

Always carry building cards in your deck: Carrying at least 1 building card is necessary for defending against not only Hog Rider, but also threats such as the Mortar, X-Bow and many other threats that would otherwise directly target your Arena Towers. These buildings include, Inferno Tower, Goblin Hut, Tombstone, Bomb Tower, Barbarian Hut, Cannon, Tesla, or even the Elixir Collector are all good buildings to block incoming Hog Rider. Depend on your deck, you can choose appropriate building card to suit your style.

At first, you should always place your building between 2 Crown Towers and near to the Hog to distract him. Once you have known your opponent got Poison card, it is best to drop your building AS FAR AS POSSIBLE from your Crown Tower to counter the radius of Poison Spell, so that he cannot damage both buildings by Poison.

Cannon – One of the most effective building with decent stats at cheap 3 elixir cost, which is a great card to distract Hog Rider.

Inferno Tower – It counters all high hp troops as it deals insane amount of damage once it builds up on a single target.

Tesla – Best counter to this deck. Why? Because Tesla will hide if there isn’t any troop around its attack range, which make it a very strong counter to Poison.

Now you have acknowledged which cards are ideal against that annoying Hog Poison combo. Here are some tips to help you have a clear overview about the strategies.

2. Hog Rider + poison combo Counter tips

#1. Be ready for opponent’s Hog. When he deploys Hog, you should drop your beefy troops IN FRONT OF him to block his path and buy some times for Crown Tower to deal damage. If you don’t have any high HP troops but ranged attackers, place them far from Crown Tower so that after taking down Hog, they can get out of the Poison AoE as fast as possible.

#2. When you don’t have ideal troops, it is best to drop building to defend against Hog. Make sure you put your building in the spot between 2 Crown Tower, allow them to both hit Hog. You may lose some HP, but in exchange you gain elixir advantage. Plan your counter attack and keep defending to gain more elixir advantage, then drop your counter and they are likely to lose 🙂